7.2

Jewel stood in the rain, looking over the courtyard of the fortress.

Her hair was wet and matted down.

Rain ran in rivers and sheets over her scales and wings.

Her flame was swimming through her coils in a rushing current. Leaving her nearly floating off the sodden earth and mud.

Next to her, slick and black like the muddy silt of what Jewel presumed was their bog, stood Tsulogothulan.

Jewel understood that the chill of winter was already well underway. That she was NOT to let Alexander play for any length of time in this sort of weather.

But as a dragon Jewel was fortified such that the bite of cold held no teeth for her.

The waters running over her and leaving all the earth sopping and muddy held no danger of sapping the vigor from her flesh. The chill in the wind had no danger to take the life from her bones.

To Jewel the terrible fangs of the mountain winds were as much a concern as her Father’s gryphon — who had been named after them.

A comforting presence that welcomed her as much as the now muddy packed dirt under foot or the stone work that supported the vault ceilings of the fortress’ cellars below it.

Likewise, the Bog Weird seemed equally comfortable in the heavy chill of near-winter rain.

Even the little tickle of ice that meshed with the falling water did not seem to bother Tsulogothulan.

They could both enjoy the simple pleasure of rain at the death of autumn like no one else in Rochford.

Which was why they were having a lesson here in the courtyard. Staring at markings that ran in whorls and sweeps. Lines sliding around each other almost like the ripples of water or the feel of the wind.

At least half of the Bog Weird’s lessons on magic were like this. Quiet with few words. At least two they had not said anything at all, just enjoyed one another’s presence for their time and then gone their separate ways.

Today they were staring at the courtyard. Because the footmen had noticed that there was something peculiar going on a few days ago and the Bog Weird had finally gotten around to investigating it.

The pattern in the courtyard honestly reminded Jewel of the furrows from a plough as seen from the air. But straight sensible lines were in very short supply.

These lines, although running in rank on rank together never moved straight for any length of time.

They spun and whorled all over in a great looping pattern like the oxen had gone somehow simultaneously mad in precisely the same way.

But it was not plough lines from the sky Jewel and Tsulogothulan were looking at.

It was the lines in the rain-flooded mud of the courtyard.

And it was not oxen digging those furrows but the rivulets and flows of the water shifting and sweeping in a subtle but inevitable pattern.

One which Jewel was all too familiar with.

It was, after all, exactly where she had danced with the village for the Wheat Harvest Festival.

And she could remember having moved the way that the waters now moved.

Tsulogothulan offered their rounded vowels after Jewel had followed a leaf caught in the endlessly cycling gyre of a current making its third circuit.

“I should have probably expected this could happen.”

All the motion of the wind and rain was maintaining a near tapestry of mud and water laid out where the histories said Rochford had mustered the armies of all the lands of men against the Wyrm Tyrant.

But more recently, where Jewel had learned to dance.

She looked over at Tsulogothulan, who met her eyes with their one and then turned to look back. The Dragon finally found she wanted to fill the silence with words.

“What exactly DID happen?”

The Wizard hummed like frog calls in summer, the sound a little unsettling so far out of season for it.

“You performed a working of sorcery, moreso you performed a proper enchantment. And an incredibly stable one at that.”

Jewel could only nod. If the Wizard told you that you had done a sorcery then you had best believe them.

“But how?”

The Wizard shrugged, which Jewel was amused to note involved actually manifesting shoulders (and the hint of arms) for what must have been the sole purpose of making the expression.

When no longer needed the two lumps sank back into the smooth sweep of hair/robes which Jewel was still not entirely sure was not actually part of Tsulogothulan.

Were all Weirds nudists?

Did that even make sense as a question to ask?

After some time with the sound of rain and wind and watching the leaf make three more circuits in spiraling twisting loops up and down and over in the wind and rain, the Weird offered an explanation.

“It was probably my fault, after a fashion. But in particular you almost certainly performed it during your dances. Repeatedly. Likely reinforcing the pattern.”

Jewel frowned a bit and considered that before quoting her earlier lessons.

“Mortal sorcery is the act of imparting new nature upon the world. To shape the elemental quality of things. But how did my dancing do this? And what do you mean your fault?”

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Tsulogothulan laughed and looked over at Jewel.

“What were my exact words to explain to you how to move when you danced?”

Jewel could only turn to stare at the pattern that continued to re-shape and sharpen itself despite the chaos that was made of the mud and rain all around it.

There were clear and precise borders.

A few days ago the pattern had been scuffed.

After the rains passed it would settle and the simple acts of the world would slowly erase it.

But with the next storm the wind and rain would shape it anew.

Exactly as before.

“Huh... Like wind and water.”

The Bog Wizard nodded.

“Exactly. My fault, seemed like the most sensible metaphor... But here we are. Wind and Water moving as you moved.”

The two fell into a companionable silence again. The leaf made another circuit, then the quiet was broken by the Weird.

“That said I didn't expect it to settle in with such permanence as this. To reemerge over and over like it’s been carved into the firmament. I was certain, after the first time, that the sorcery of it was far more ephemeral. Only affecting those that danced with you at the moment and a bit after.”

Jewel jerked back around to gape at Tsulogothulan. Voice rising a pitch.

“You’ve known I did a working of sorcery since the third Summer?!”

Tsulogothulan laughed and shook their beak of a nose.

“Certainly, but everyone does a bit of sorcery all the time. There is a working in the way birds fly, frogs sing, in the whistle of a peasant done with a day’s labor. The division is not as sharp as most people make it out to be. if I called out every time a working happened by accident I’d never stop talking.”

Jewel blinked, she’d suspected sorcery of Muriel and a few others. But everyone? However, given this premise that brought on a burning question.

“But if everyone performs sorcery all the time and everywhere what is the point of Wizardry? Does that not make everyone a Wizard?”

Tsulogothulan just laughed like the burble of a brook and shook their head.

“I used to think so, but sadly it's not the case. I don’t rightly know myself honestly what makes a Wizard, or a Weird for that matter.”

Jewel settled down into the cool welcoming mud, She would be getting a bath this evening before dinner anyway so no point not to get comfortable for what sounded like a bit of a lecture, or a rant. There was not as clear a distinction between the two with Tsulogothulan.

The Bog Wizard was here to teach her the nature of Sorcery and other subjects. Had been trying since Kaeketah.

Jewel was yet unsure of the success, there were far fewer books involved then time with Muriel.

“Urul calls it my Truth, Fizzbunches says it’s the knack, Euewyn refers to the-” And the wind blew through reeds and marsh grass, but with a cold biting winter feel that definitely did remind Jewel of the Weird of Autumn but with a hilarious lilt to it that was undeniably every inch of silt and drop of pond scum from Tsulogothulan.

“But unless one of us is looking at a working in the world ourselves, it barely makes any sense to any of us without having conferred before on the subject together.”

Jewel tilted her head in confusion.

“But is it not all the works of sorcery? Surely you can just speak of it.”

The Weird considered Jewel and then shook their head again.

“My workings are obvious to me, but I could explain my way of things from dawn to dusk from winter round through a whole year for ten scores and that would not bring Jaksa the Red any closer to being the Weird of Blood then if I’d said nothing.”

Which caused Jewel to frown in confusion.

“What about teaching him to be the kind of Weird you are?”

Which got another laugh and another shake in the negative.

“Even harder and far more dangerous. We’re not the same. I don’t know his way well enough to even guess how badly that could go. But Fizzbunches and I? We’ve made a try at it before.”

Jewel scowled, she didn't like even being reminded that not only did Tsulogothulan know Fizzbunches but was actually colleagues with him. Was even friendly with the insufferable cat and that the Bog weird was even somehow subservient to him.

It was not as sure a fealty as Jewel or her Father to the Countess Bathory, but the thought was unpleasant.

“It did not go well, even for a simple working both of us had our own version of. He collapsed a house into dust. I ended up scouring a field of water for ten years. We were trying to share notes on how we carried luggage.”

That was... something else.

“Carrying Luggage?”

Tsulogothulan nodded.

“Collapsed a house?”

“Into dust. Powdery stuff too, it got everywhere, and even made a few people sick.”

Jewel tilted her head to the side the other way and blinked slowly.

“How do you carry luggage if he could make a mistake like that?”

To which the Bog Weird reached into a sleeve, and as Jewel paid attention pulled threads of something out in their fist.

Well, almost like that, it was like fingers had grasped a thousand threads and started pulling on them.

It was hard to see, because none of it was happening where Jewel’s eyes could actually see anything.

But she could tell in the way she felt her Wyrmflame move that there were threads of a thing and they were being tightly grasped and as the hand emerged from the sleeve it sort of was weaving whatever it had grabbed all together into-

A Loaf of bread?

Jewel blinked and tilted her head at what appeared to be a freshly baked round of bread from the Kitchens of Rochford.

Only the longer she looked the more she realized there was something wrong.

No.

It was what might have been a loaf of bread. If you somehow had found a way to un-bake it.

The thing was far more similar to a round of dough before it was put through the oven, but with the coloring of a golden rind painted on it.

However the entire thing sagged in the Bog Weird’s hand the longer they held it forth.

The rain pummeling down around them muffled the scent so Jewel leaned close and gave it a sniff.

Which left her even more perplexed.

It still smelled like a fresh baked round.

It even gave off warmth like it had just come out of the oven.

But it was definitely sagging more and more through Tsulogothulan’s fingers.

Jewel stared at the drooping, almost oozing mass that was both bread and very much not.

Then fixed her gaze to Tsulogothulan and because Jewel was the Weird’s friend she felt it necessary to say this.

“That is very interesting but please don’t help to carry any of my possessions.”

Which for some reason utterly shocked and flustered the Wizard.